


a chair is not a house

by greenurr



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Cunnilingus, Did I mention dogs?, Disabled Character, Dogs, Dogs For Days, Dom/sub Undertones, Enthusiastic Consent, Erectile Dysfunction, Falling In Love, Fluff, Healthy Relationships, Intercrural Sex, Multi, Never Enough Dogs, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Praise Kink, Prostate Milking, Rimming, Self-Esteem Issues, So Many Dogs, Vaginal Fingering, Vibrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-11 03:39:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12926565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenurr/pseuds/greenurr
Summary: After the war, Eliot moves back home, and gets a dog.There’s more to it than that.An AU in which Eliot returns home from the army missing a leg and an eye, Hardison is a slightly famous internet gamer, and Parker runs a circus. A story that involves dogs, and no crime, unless you include the dogs stealing our heroes' hearts.





	a chair is not a house

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note: there is, in the third part, a brief moment of casual cis-sexism (conflating genitals with gender), however, it's during a moment of high intensity, due to a misunderstanding, and is moved on from quickly. If you'd like to read the fic but would rather avoid that, skip from Eliot's line that ends "I've tried" to his line that begins with "Well, obviously you don't want to..." as it's just a few lines and you really won't miss anything of importance. 
> 
> I kept it in because, while this fic doesn't necessarily go into it fully, erectile dysfunction and the distress it can cause intersects a lot with assumptions about the function and purpose of one's genitals, which in turn interact with transness and the cis-sexist nature of the society in which we live. I think it's important to explore these sorts of things, especially in erotica. Good sex can look like anything the people having it want it to. Things like transness, sexual function, and many other things can change the ways in which people are comfortable having sex, and it might not line up perfectly with what popular media says about what sex is supposed to look like, but that doesn't mean that all folks can't have a healthy, consenting, and fulfilling sex life in a way that suits them best!
> 
> So that's what this story is about, and also, foster dogs!

After the war, Eliot moves back home, and gets a dog.

There’s more to it than that.

The war isn’t over, but it is for him. He signed up bright eyed and fresh faced, and came back home with ten years worth of PTSD and a leg and an eye lighter, honorable discharge in his hand. In terms of being blown up, the army doctor had told him, earnestly, he had done quite well. And he had. No one else from his unit had survived.

It didn’t make adjusting to a life with one leg and one eye and burn marks up and down the left side of his body any easier.

He does go back home, at first. Where else would he go? He has no family anywhere else. So he goes back home and sleeps in the same room he did the first 18 years of his life, the walls lined with trophies from football games he won with two good feet, sharpshooting trophies he won with two good eyes. He can’t stand it.

He can’t stand to be inside this house, eating his father’s food, barely contributing with his disability checks. He can’t stand to go outside, outside into this small town where everyone knows everyone, and everyone knows what happened to that poor Spencer boy. He went off to war and came back like this. Wasn’t he great? Wasn’t he the football star, the prom king, always helping little old ladies cross the street and teaching half the neighborhood kids to ride a bike? Wasn’t he?

And what is he now? Twenty-eight years old, bitter and battered and unemployable in this manufacturing town. He can feel the people staring at him, pitying him, talking about him. It beats in his skull like a heartbeat, the pain and anger and fear and most of all: the disappointment.

He can’t stay there. He can’t stay anywhere that looks like there, where people sound and look and act like there. He thinks about his unit, and he thinks about O’Mally, in the same unit from training camp until. Well. Until death did them part. O’Mally was mean, and she was keen, and most importantly, she was from Boston. She had the strongest accent Eliot had ever heard, on anyone. _C’maan Spencah, grab me a beeah. I’m fine to drive, do you see any cahs around heyah? It’s not like I’m fackin gonna hit somebaady, Jesus Christ._

He packs up all his belongings into one suitcase, and buys a bus ticket to Boston with two hundred dollars in his pocket.

He doesn’t want to find the O’Mally family, doesn’t want to imagine their begrudging hospitality, their eyes silently screaming at him “Why? Why did you survive when our daughter didn’t?”

So he spends the first day looking for work, or for a place to sleep. He knows the statistics, and he knows what he looks like. A disabled veteran with no connections is more likely to end up begging on the street than finding a good job and a nice house.

He gets both by accident.

Around dinnertime, he wanders into a little corner store to find something to eat, the easygoing quarreling of a mother and her adult daughter manning the front of the store easing into background noise. It isn’t until he opens his mouth to ask “Do you guys have anything ready to eat?” that he realizes. They were speaking Urdu, and he was too.

“Pretty good accent for a white boy,” the daughter says, leaning against the counter. She has a lip ring, and is very pretty. Before, he would have smiled at her, and she might have smiled back. Now Eliot just shrugs, not meeting her eyes.

“Where did you serve?” asks the mother.

Eliot shrugs again. “Everywhere, seems like.”

The mother looks him over with sharp eyes, noting his crutch, his missing leg, his old boot and dirty clothes, his duffel bag filled with everything he owns.

“Where are you sleeping tonight?”

Eliot stares at the floor. “I don’t know.”

“Can you lift boxes?” asks the daughter. 

Eliot breaks his staring match with the floor and looks at her. “What?”

“I mean you’re missing a leg and an eye but you have two good arms,” says the daughter, ignoring her mother’s admonishment and quick slap on the back of the head. “Can you lift boxes, and stock things?”

“Yeah,” says Eliot. “Yeah, of course.”

“Ammi, he’s perfect. You were so worried about replacing Abbu, and here we have a big white man with biceps the size of my head that can do all the lifting and stocking. He might look like a gorilla, but he knows how to speak the best language on the planet, so he must be pretty smart too. I bet we could teach him how to use the cash register in no time.”

“Hey,” says Eliot, smiling for what might be the first time in weeks. “Who are you calling a gorilla?”

“You are lucky I have such a big heart,” says the mother, shaking her finger at the daughter. “Or else I would have thrown you into the street years ago.”

“Oh but Ammi,” says the daughter, fluttering her eyelashes. “What would the neighbors think?”

The mother was Rahmah, the daughter, Tahiya, he learned. Rahmah’s husband had passed away a year ago, but the business was growing now, and they couldn’t just get by with just two people anymore. They had an empty room in their apartment, and a position they needed to fill.

“One good leg, two good arms, and one pretty blue eye,” says Tahiya, pinching his cheek. “That’s all we need.”

Eliot lives with them for four years.

The store had been in the family for generations, since Rahmah’s grandfather had come over from Pakistan. They had been in the same location, doing the same thing, for decades. But Tahiya had gone to college, to business school, and had a lot of big ideas. Most of them worked out pretty well. Within four years, the store had three locations, and ten employees, and offered hand made Pakistani desserts. Eliot, they had found, made halwa that was almost as good as Rahmah’s.

It’s in that time that Eliot finds Scooter.

Eliot works mostly at the original store, while Tahiya and Rahmah split their time between all three locations. Whether it had started out as a good neighborhood or not, the area surrounding the store was a bit unsavory. It helped to have a big guy with a crutch who could instantly KO a motherfucker with a blow to the head if somebody got a little frisky, as Tahiya very enthusiastically described.

He’s finishing closing up for the day and locking the back door when he hears it. A whimper. Then a whine. It sounds like something hurt. He walks into the alleyway next to the store, and pushes aside a pile of trash. It’s a dog, he realizes, a small brown dog with—and Eliot has to hold back vomit, even after everything he’s seen—two mangled, broken back legs.

The dog whines again, staring up at Eliot. It beats its tail against the ground a few times, happy to see him, hoping he can help. Eliot rushes to the apartment above the shop, finds a towel and calls Tahiya, frantic, runs as well as he can back to the dog. It’s still there whining pathetically. The dog still wags its tail when it sees Eliot.

He gathers it up in the towel, as gently as he possibly can, and still the dog yelps and cries but never, ever bites. He and Tahiya jump in her car and race to the closest veterinary hospital. Eliot holds the dog in his arms in the passenger seat, whispering to it to try to keep it calm. Once, when he bends his head down, the dog very delicately licks his nose.

When they get to the animal hospital, the doctors say, sympathetically, that it would be best to put him down. That he was in a lot of pain, and his legs were too mangled, they simply weren’t fixable. 

Tahiya takes one look at Eliots face and squares her shoulders. “What are our other options?” she asks.

That’s how, three hours later, Eliot finds himself taking home a small brown dog recently released of its two back legs.

It takes a while to adjust. Tahiya and Rahmah have since moved out of their old apartment, leaving it just to Eliot. Living with Rahmah and Tahiya had always meant movement and noise, good-natured bickering and music playing and something bubbling on a stovetop. He doesn’t want to admit it, but since they left he’s spent a lot of time sitting alone in the dark.

At first, he refuses to name the dog, pretends like he’s not going to keep it. To be honest, he can’t imagine giving it away, handing the dog to someone else. But at the same time, he panics at the idea of having something to look after, something to take care of. 

He calls the dog “hey, you,” for three weeks, buys food and a bowl, a bed, toys. Forces the painkillers, antibiotics, and anti-imflamatories down the dog’s throat when he spits them out after licking up the peanut butter Eliot had hid them in. He’s a pretty smart dog. Eliot does some research, and he thinks the dog is maybe part Jack Russell. The thing sure has the energy for it, dragging himself along with his front feet once he’s healed enough, a miniature army crawl.

“Oh, look,” says Tahiya, the first time she sees this. “Look at him scoot. Oh, he’s a little scooter. You’re a scooter, aren’t you? Aren’t you?" 

The dog’s tail beats against the floor, and thus Scooter is christened.

He doesn’t mean to start a collection. He really doesn’t it’s just—Tahiya has a friend, Ingrid, working for a dog rescue organization, and it’s so hard to find foster parents, she says. Not hard for the puppies, but for the old dogs, and disabled dogs, the dogs who aren’t so pretty on the outside, but so, so sweet on the inside. The organization will pay for any medical bills, any food costs, Ingrid assures him. They just need space, and a roof over their heads, and someone to take care of them, someone with a flexible schedule. You live in the apartment right above the shop, don’t you? That’s very close to where you work, and you’re the boss, you can give yourself breaks whenever you want, if the dogs need you. Oh, and it has a little yard, already fenced in? Wow, how convenient.

At first Eliot is worried about how Scooter will react, which is why they start small, easy. A cross-eyed Cocker Spaniel who wobbles when she walks and bumps into walls, but will lean up against your legs when you stand and look at you the best she can with her big brown eyes. Eliot gives her the name Bump, and waits for her while she gets spayed, brings her home drugged up and even dopier than she usually is.

Scooter, of course, is delighted. He now has a little contraption attached to his hips with wheels that let him walk, that Eliot spent a truly embarrassing amount of time and money designing and building. Scooter takes to Bump like a duck to water, steadying her at her food bowl by leaning up against her shoulder, guiding her when they’re out on walks. They sleep together, curled up on the pillow next to Eliot’s head, and Eliot just bites the bullet and pays the $200 adoption fee for Bump.

“You’re not going to adopt every dog we give you to foster, will you?” asks Ingrid, teasing, as he hands over a check. 

“I fucking hope not,” says Eliot, and Ingrid laughs.

“You might look mean,” says Ingrid, smiling, “but you’re a softy underneath. I saw through you the moment I met you.”

Eliot looks at Ingrid, for a moment, taking in her pretty dark skin, her long dreads, the big shiny ring on her pointer finger and the pout of her mouth. Bump’s been the only woman in his bed since he got back to the US, and Scooter the only man, if they even count. Eliot smiles, and swallows a little bit, and looks back down at the ground.

 

“I think we should get a dog,” says Parker, hanging upside-down from the ceiling.

“What, baby?” asks Alec. He’s playing the new edition of Kill People and Drive Cars, which is very important and can be used as an excuse to not necessarily be listening to his circus artist girlfriend. Anyway, he’s going to be doing a YouTube live stream of this later, so it practically counts as work. Practically. 

“Like a little dog? Or a big dog. I would be okay with either. What would you want?” Parker swings up on her static trapeze and does a handstand on the bar, spreading her legs out in a split. So now Alec is distracted by that, and promptly gets killed. Parker smirks at him, which is both annoying and endearing, even upside-down.

“Why do you want a dog all of the sudden? Woman, we can barely keep a plant alive, you think we should get a dog? All that blood rushing to your head must be making you crazy.”

Parker sighs, and does a flipping dismount. “I want a little puppy,” she says, draping herself over Hardison from behind. “To play with and hug.”

“The patter of teeny tiny puppy feet,” says Hardison, imagining.

“Exactly,” says Parker, kissing his neck. “And also I could teach it todocircustricks.”

“What was that?” asks Hardison, turning around. Parker hides her face in his neck.

“I could teach it to do circus tricks,” she says, muffled.

“Oh, I see,” says Hardison. “I see, now I get it, now I understand. You want to take this dog touring, add in an animal element. Girl, I see through you." 

“People like animal acts,” says Parker, shrugging, walking back towards her trapeze. “Besides, we have the money, and the space. And you’re a shut in, so it’ll have a companion when I go to the studio, or touring." 

“Hey, hey, I am not a shut in,” says Hardison, cracking open an orange soda. “I just have a job that requires sitting on the couch playing video games all day.”

“Shut in,” agrees Parker, doing something on the trapeze that the human body probably shouldn’t be able to do. “Anyway, I want to get a dog.”

Hardison isn’t necessarily opposed to it. They have a big enough house, and plenty of money, since they both have surprisingly lucrative jobs and no kids to support. And he could probably do a video introducing the dog, those always get a lot of hits.

“Alright,” says Hardison, and opens up a new webpage on his laptop, googling “get a dog Boston!!!” and looking through what comes up.

“Yay!” says Parker, and does a flip.

“Huh,” says Hardison. “There’s actually an adoption agency with an office like, a block away.”

“Let’s go now,” says Parker. “You weren’t doing very well in that video game anyways.”

“Rude,” Hardison scoffs.

They walk down the block to the adoption agency. When they first walk in, all Hardison can see is a bear lying down on the ground, in front of the desk. It’s a bear! In an office! Could you adopt bears? Oh God, what if Parker wanted to adopt a bear? Would he say no? Probably not. Did they have room for a bear? He doesn’t think their lease allows bears. Hardison takes a deep breath in and out.

What he now realizes is a gigantic dog lifts its head to look at them, and then huffs and laboriously rises to its feet, walking behind the counter and into a back room.

“That was a bear,” whispers Parker, eyes full of wonder. “Can we get a bear?" 

“I don’t think our lease allows bears, baby,” says Hardison, staying strong. From the back room a tall, dreadlocked woman appears, followed by the bear-dog, who seems to decide that Hardison’s foot is a fantastic place to rest it’s head.

“Don’t mind Orion,” says the woman, coming around and shoving the dog’s head off of Hardison’s foot. “She thinks it’s her job to get in everybody’s business. I’m Ingrid.” She offers a hand. Hardison shakes it, and Parker gives her a quick high five. Ingrid blinks, then nods her head and takes a seat behind the counter. “Y’all looking to adopt a dog?”

“Yep,” chirps Parker.

“Alright, what are you looking for in terms of size, breed, age, temperament?”

Parker and Hardison both blink at her.

“Dog?” Parker offers, hesitantly.

Ingrid sighs. “Alright, we’ll look for dogs that are good for first time owners.”

Ingrid shows them pictures and videos of the dogs they have in foster care at the moment. Once Parker lets slip that she wants to train the dog for the circus, and assures Ingrid multiple times that her circus is perfectly humane and operates according to all safety and health guidelines, Ingrid shows some dogs that are smart, and show promise to be easily trainable. 

None of them really seem to fit. Hardison can tell by the way that Parker is becoming steadily more and more still over time that she’s overwhelmed by all the choices, and he’s becoming pretty discouraged himself.

Ingrid bites her bottom lip. “You know what, I think I might have the dog for you.” She pulls out her phone, and brings up a video, a shaky cell phone camera vid. 

The video starts on a man, and Hardison is. Struck. He’s handsome, with long, shiny, pretty brown hair and stubble. Hardison has, not a thing, okay, it’s not a thing, but he likes long pretty hair. The man has a pretty baller eyepatch, and as the camera wobbles Hardison can catch sight of a prosthetic leg. The man is also holding up about sixty pounds of excited Standard Poodle like it weighs absolutely nothing, and Hardison swallows at the sight of those arms and shoulders.

 “Tell us about Pirate!” says an enthusiastic woman’s voice from behind the camera. Hardison sighs internally. That’s probably his girlfriend, or maybe even his wife. Damn, all the good ones always get taken.

“I’ll tell you about her, just give me a second,” the man grouses, obviously trying to wrestle the dog so it’ll face the camera. The dog seems much more interested in licking his face. Eventually, the man gives up, and addresses the viewer. Hardison has never seen such a stink face on someone holding such a happy dog. It makes him want to laugh, but it also makes his heart a little melty.

“This is Pirate, she’s a four year old chocolate Standard Poodle,” he says, as the dog happily pants in his arms. Hardison has always thought the Poodle cut looked pretty silly, but on Pirate it doesn’t look too bad. “She has a great temperament, and she’s very smart. We’ve been training her, and she takes to it real good.”

The man has a little bit of a Texlahoma accent, and Hardison physically clenches his fists when he hears it to keep from doing. Something. He doesn’t know, but it would be something drastic. He doesn’t feel too bad about it, though, because at the same time Parker grabs onto his arm. He looks over, and her eyes are wide like they only are when she sees a really nice gymnastics mat.

“The only thing,” says the man, “is that she’s missing an eye on the left side. She can see fine with the other one though.” The video cuts to Pirate, sitting and panting up at the camera, obviously waiting for a treat. She does only have one eye, but she has a very big smile. The video then cuts to scenes of the man having Pirate sit, lie down, roll over, and give him a high five. 

“We only taught her those tricks in the last few weeks. She’s a good girl, and real smart,” says the man, absently play wrestling with Pirate on the floor. There’s a thump, and the man then looks off to the side, with a look of such fondness Hardison’s heart melts. “Aw, Bump,” he says, starting to stand up, and the video ends.

“Can we go get her now?” Parker blurts out. Ingrid laughs.

“Yeah, alright,” she says. “Eliot’ll be home.”

“Eliot?” says Hardison, trying to come off cool. He realizes he’s never been so great at it, but he should get points for trying. “Is that the, uh, the man in the video?”

“Yep!” says Ingrid, grabbing her bag. She whistles for Orion, and the dog slowly and laboriously lifts itself off the ground and comes loping after her.

On the way, Ingrid explains that actually, they won’t be getting to take Pirate home today. They need to fill out an application, and also have a home visit to see if their house is suitable for a dog. “Earliest you’ll get her is probably a week, maybe two, if everything works out,” says Ingrid.

“But we’ll get to meet her?” asks Parker.

“Yep!” says Ingrid, as she turns into a building on the corner. Immediately the smell of baking hits Hardison’s nose, spices and yeast, the slow heat of things rising. The store, as he looks around, seems to be part convenience store, part bakery. There are toothbrushes, and gum, and cans of soup crowded together on shelves, but there are also signs advertising homemade baklava and balah el sham, and at the back of the store, there’s a propped open door where the sweet smells are coming from. 

In the front of the store is a bored looking teenager, staring at his phone.

“Hey Saami,” says Ingrid. “Eliot in back?”

The boy grunts.

“You better put that phone away before Eliot comes and sees it,” says Ingrid, heading towards the back door. The boy grumbles, but slides his phone into his back pocket and leans over to give Orion a gentle pat on the head. She sits down and pants happily.

“C’mon, back through the kitchen,” says Ingrid. “Stay on the edges though, Eliot doesn’t like people in his kitchen. Well, to be honest, Eliot doesn’t like most people. He’s a softie though! Well, I mean…. You’ll see!”

With that heartening sales pitch, Ingrid walks through the door and Hardison literally gulps, like a cartoon, because standing with him back to them, in a tight tank top, is The Hottie Known As Eliot and he’s kneading bread. With his shoulders. And his arms. And Hardison is pretty well built himself, okay, he knows a deltoid from a coracobrachialis but he just didn’t know that muscle could ripple like that. Outside of original erotic fiction that he definitely does not publish under a fake name online, thank you very much. 

To other people, the image of a beautiful man whipping around to glare at you for trespassing in his kitchen might not be deeply sexually satisfying. It’s a good thing that Hardison isn’t like other people.

“I told you not to come into my damn kitchen, Ingrid!” Eliot huffs. “And who the hell are these people?”

“We want a dog!” Parker blurts out. Hardison takes it as a good sign. Parker has a hard time controlling her impulses and volume when she’s around people she’s interested in. Their first few dates were interspersed with Parker just yelling compliments at Hardison randomly, which was pretty gratifying to be honest.

“Specifically, they want Pirate,” says Ingrid, smiling. “And they’re gonna agility train her. You’ve been holding out for someone who’ll use her brain, right?" 

Eliot huffs, and wipes dough off his hands, then turns and limps towards the back of the kitchen and opens a door that leads to a set of stairs.

“He doesn’t talk a whole lot,” whispers Ingrid. “But that means we should follow him.”

They head up the stairs, and into the sun-soaked apartment and three dogs come from the other room, one scurrying using only his front legs and a set of wheels behind him, one flopsy-mopsying over on unsteady legs, but the one out in front, the one rushing up and taking the lead with long strides and one intelligent eye, well—

Hardison didn’t know it was possible to fall in love twice in one day.

It’s been six months and Parker is, in general, extremely pleased.

There’s a lot to be pleased about. She’s teaching a new advanced trapeze class with some of her best students at her school, and it’s a lot of fun, even though she doesn’t quite get why they’re unwilling to hang upside down for up to thirty minutes at a time. “Doing that would make us pass out, Parker.” Whatever. Wusses.

She’s been training Pirate up, and that’s going great. They’re developing a routine, and Parker thinks it’ll be ready for the summer tour. It’s nautical based, and Hardison found a little sailor’s hat and uniform online for Pirate, which fits her perfectly. It’s adorable, and highly functional, which is a good description of Hardison himself, really.

Oh, yeah, and they’re dating Eliot. It’s going well! She’s pretty pleased about that, too. 

She had known, of course, from the second that she had seen Eliot on the video that she had wanted to fuck him. And she had known, from Hardison’s reaction, that he wanted to fuck Eliot, too. It was a little hard, even for Parker, who didn’t pick up on social cues so great, to misread Hardison practically dragging her home, eating her out until she came four times, and then jerking off on her hair. It was a thing for him. He said it wasn’t a thing, but it was a thing.

So she had assumed that they would fuck him once or twice, and amicably move on, as they had with that British countess, and also the bartender at their favorite bar. But the countess had moved away mysteriously, and the bartender’s son had gotten sick (and then better), but understandably, both relationships had faded. It wasn’t until Hardison had started waxing poetic about Eliot’s good heart and how sweet he was with his dogs that Parker realized something more might be going on here.

Parker and Hardison were, in some ways, very similar, and in some ways, very different. One of these similarities was that they both had a lot of feelings about a lot of stuff. The difference was that Hardison spread his feelings out all over the place, and Parker focused hers on a very strict point. It wasn’t hard for Hardison to think about bringing another person into their relationship because he had already spread his feelings like a big glob of Nutella on Eliot’s proverbial toast. It had taken Parker a lot of thinking, and a lot of measuring, and a lot of “hypothetical” discussions with Hardison while avoiding his eyes to decide that, yeah, maybe she had only ever had the laser focus that was her feelings centered on one person, but if two people got into her scope, she could shoot both of them with her love. Hardison winced when he heard that, and told her not to use that metaphor when talking to Eliot. Parker had already known, though. PTSD could be one hell of a bitch, she understood.

So they had danced around it with Eliot, and waited for him to make the first move, which admittedly took some gentle coaxing on Hardison’s part and barely concealed excitement on Parker’s. But Eliot had made the first move, screwing up his face in determination one morning as they took their dogs for a walk and planting a clumsy kiss on Parker. It hadn’t been a super great kiss, because Parker had been telling a story about how she was trying to train her students by having them crawl though air vents, so her mouth was open at the time. But they had had more and better ones since, and Hardison and Eliot had, too.

They haven’t had sex yet, but that’s okay. Parker and Hardison can wait, even though she’s going through shampoo fast with how often Hardison comes in her hair.

So all and all, Parker is extremely pleased until, on the exact anniversary of their third month dating Eliot, he sits Parker and Hardison down in their living room and mumbles something about how they deserve better than him.

“What?” asks Parker, partially because she can’t believe what she’s hearing, and also because he really is mumbling, and she really can’t hear him very well.

“You deserve somebody who’s—who’s whole,” says Eliot. Parker can tell he’s biting back tears, in that grouchy way of his. 

“What does whole mean?” asks Hardison. “Is this, you know, about your leg and your eye?” They had had a lot of conversations early on about Eliot’s leg and eye. They mainly involved Hardison talking very earnestly about how much they liked Eliot _because_ of, not _despite_ of his eye and leg, and Parker nodding very earnestly and rubbing Eliot’s good knee, and Eliot flushing and avoiding eye contact but sticking around, which was the goal.

“It’s my leg, it’s my eye, it’s my fucking—Jesus!” Eliot stands up and limps into the kitchen, makes a lap around the table, and comes back to the living room. He covers his face with his hands, and sighs harshly. “Look, I can’t ever have sex with you, and so there’s no point in us being together like this if I can’t.”

“Why can’t you have sex?” asks Parker, whom Hardison promptly hits on the leg. Through a lot of eyebrow waggling and meaningful eye widening, Hardison communicates that the proper response to that would have been “We want to be with you even if we never have sex” which it honestly hadn’t occurred to Parker to say, because doesn’t Eliot know that? Doesn’t he?

“I can’t get it up,” Eliot says, jaw clenching, still looking down at the floor. “I can’t get hard, I can’t have sex. I can barely even jerk off and believe me—” He laughs harshly. “I’ve tried.”

“I can’t get hard,” says Parker, genuinely worried for a moment. “Does that mean I can’t have sex?”

“I’m not a fucking girl, Parker!” Eliot’s voice breaks, and he turns away.

“Okay, okay,” says Hardison, holding his hands up. “Okay. Let’s all take a deep breath. Eliot, Parker knows you’re not a girl, that’s just where her mind went. Baby,” and Hardison stands up, approaches Eliot, reaches out a hand but brings it back before he can touch. “Baby, is there any other reason you don’t want to have sex with us?”

“Well, obviously you don’t want to, I’m fucking broken.” Eliot’s voice is flat.

“That’s not what I’m asking. I’m not asking about what me and Parker want. I’m asking about what you want. Is there any other reason you don’t want to have sex with us?”

“No. No, I want to, but I can’t. I can’t, and you can’t.” Eliot grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“We want to have sex with you. We do,” says Parker, as Eliot scoffs. “We really do. We talk about it all the time, that’s all we do when we fuck anymore. We just fuck, and talk about how much we want to fuck you.”

“I can’t fuck you!” Eliot’s voice breaks again, and Parker’s heart breaks just a little bit with it. “I can’t get hard! You aren’t listening to me!”

“You don’t have to be hard for us to fuck you,” says Hardison, and Parker has a Pavlovian response to that tone of voice. “You don’t have to be hard for Parker to sit on your face, or your fingers. You don’t have to be hard for me to fuck your mouth, or that sweet ass. Fuck,” Hardison says, and grabs Eliot’s ass. “This fucking ass. You don’t have to be hard for us to kiss you all over, and make you feel good. You don’t have to be hard for that.”

Eliot is panting into Hardison’s mouth, and Parker hasn’t ever noticed their height difference like she notices it now, Eliot drawn up on his tiptoes and Hardison still bending down to speak in his ear, quietly, but loud enough so Parker can still hear. She can feel herself getting wet, squirming on the couch cushion.

“Do you want that?” asks Hardison, sweetly, in that way he gets. Outside of the bedroom, Parker runs everything. Outside of the bedroom, Hardison is clumsy and silly and awkward. But once they get into it, Hardison has a sweet mouth, and gentle hands, and it’s easy to go where he puts you, to let him make you feel good.

Eliot nods.

“You have to say it, baby,” says Hardison. “You have to ask for it.”

“Please,” whispers Eliot, and leaning forward Parker can still just barely hear him.

“That’s my good boy,” says Hardison, voice warm and smooth like honey. Eliot’s mouth opens, and Hardison sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. “Parker, take him into the bedroom and get undressed. I’ll be there in a second.”

Parker nods, and takes Eliot by the hand, brings him into his bedroom.

“Okay?” she asks, hovering her hands over the buttons on his shirt. Eliot nods.

“Hardison is…” he says, wonder in his voice.

“Yeah, I know,” she says, and they smile at each other, and she giggles a little.

By the time Hardison walks in they’re both lying naked on the bed, kissing, Eliot on his back with Parker braced above him. Eliot’s taken his prosthetic off, which he rarely does, and she can feel the end of his thigh, cut off right above the knee, against her own leg.

“Fuck, look at that,” Hardison breathes. “Look at my pretty babies, waiting for me so nicely.” He climbs onto the bed, hovering over both of them, still in his jeans and black t-shirt. He dips down and kisses Parker gently, then Eliot.

“You ever been fingered?” Hardison asks Eliot gently. Eliot nods, already flushed from his hairline to his neck. “You like it?” Hardison asks, and Eliot nods again, flushing deeper. “Good,” says Hardison, and kisses his way down Eliot’s body. Parker bites her lip.

Hardison already had the lube tucked away in his hands and he goes to open it before Eliot places one hand on his shoulder, the other one reaching down to cover his cock. It’s not hard, and Eliot swallows. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, it’s probably not gonna happen. I can turn over, if you want, or we could stop—”

Hardison shushes him, moves his hand to press lingering kisses at his hipbones, on his thighs, and gently at the tip of his soft cock. “You’re exactly where I want you, doing exactly what I want. If I want something, baby, I’ll tell you. You don’t have to worry about a thing.” Hardison cocks his head, looking at Eliot, and Parker buries her nose in Eliot’s soft hair, smoothes a hand over his scarred chest.

“You need something else to do, to distract you?” asks Hardison. Eliot hesitantly nods his head. “Show him how to finger you, Parker, baby, show him how you like it."

Parker grins and kneels up, bringing Eliot’s big hand down towards her cunt. “Like this,” she says, as Eliot slides one thick finger into her. “Slow, and crook your finger like—yeah,” she sighs, moving her hips just a bit. “Just like that.”

“Is she wet for you?” asks Hardison, as he slicks up his fingers and pushes one slowly into Eliot. He closes his eyes and arches his neck like a satisfied cat.

“Ride his fingers, baby,” says Hardison, making eye contact with Parker.

“Three, I can take three,” whispers Parker, unwilling to break the spell they’re all under. Eliot pushes up, and she pushes down, and he crooks his fingers, and she groans, her mouth falling open. Eliot fucks up into her with his big, blunt fingers, and she rides him the best she can, her thighs shaking. She’s getting Eliot’s hand all wet, has wetness sliding down the side of her thigh, fuck. Fuck, she’s so wet.

She doesn’t realize she has her eyes closed until they flutter open at the noise Eliot makes, halfway between a gasp and a squeal. Hardison’s head is bent down, fluttering his tongue around the three fingers he has buried deep in Eliot’s ass, and as she watches he spreads those fingers and licks _in_. She has to bring a finger down to rub at her clit, and her eyes roll back in her head as she comes.

“Enough,” Parker says, and pulls off of Eliot, flopping down beside him. His hair is stuck to his face, sweating, even though when she looks down, he isn’t more than half hard. She looks up before he can notice her noticing, and kisses his neck, the side of his face, the shell of his ear.

“He loves to do this,” she whispers to Eliot, where Hardison can’t hear, too busy groaning between Eliot’s legs. “I think he loves it more than eating pussy, or sucking dick. He can just do this for hours. Do you want that? Do you want him to just keep going, until you think he can’t anymore? But he always can, he always will.” She kisses Eliot, and he whines into her mouth.

Hardison sits up, and slaps Eliot hard on the ass. Parker doesn’t think neither she nor Hardison fails to notice the way Eliot’s mouth falls open, his half hard dick twitches. 

“I gotta go grab something,” says Hardison, climbing off the bed. He’s still wearing all of his clothes, even has his jeans still buttoned, although it must be painful with how hard he is. “Keep his mouth busy while I’m gone, baby.” Hardison walks into the ensuite bathroom where, Parker knows with a shiver, they keep their toys. But she has a job to do.

“Stick out your tongue,” says Parker, and Eliot’s eyebrows furrow. She drifts her finger over the eyebrow above his missing eye, the scar that bisects it, and miraculously, his eyebrows smooth out. “Stick out your tongue, I promise it’ll be fun,” she whispers, as she straddles his chest, inching on her knees upward towards his face.

“I bet you say that to all the boys,” he says, but sticks out his tongue anyway, flat and heavy against his bottom lip.

“No, only you,” she says, and smiles at him. He smiles back, around his tongue, and it looks kind of silly, but she doesn’t laugh. She’s too busy lowering herself down, perfectly positioning her clit so that it rubs so nicely against his tongue.

“Yeah,” she says, and moves her hips, bracing herself over him and practically humping his face. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

After her first orgasm, if she has a little while to recover, she can have practically an unlimited amount afterwards. They aren’t strong, but they take so little effort, and by the end of the few minutes that Hardison is gone, it feels like she’s coming every ten seconds, her hips jumping against Eliot’s tongue.

“That looks real nice, baby, but let’s give the poor boy a break,” says Hardison, and holds her hips, stills them and helps her pull off, lying her back down beside Eliot. His face is covered in her wetness, and she kisses him sloppily, tasting herself on what must be a numb tongue.

Eliot breaks the kiss and groans, and Parker looks down to see Hardison sliding a toy into Eliot that she knows is wickedly curved at the end. She grins and squirms down, resting her head on Eliot’s shoulder to watch. 

“You know,” says Hardison, conversationally, “I usually use this for Parker, to find her g-spot, but if we just adjust a little…” Hardison screws up his face, concentrating, until Eliot gives a jump, and a groan.

“Yeah, there we go,” says Hardison, and grinds up, grinning wickedly. Eliot’s eyes open, and his mouth closes, and liquid starts to ooze slowly from his cock. “There we go, there we go,” Hardison continues, as Eliot arches and arches and arches, his face drawn up in a parody of agony, harsh pants stemming from his lips. His cock continues to spill, gathering on his belly and sliding down his sides.

“Please,” Eliot gasps, “please, please, I can’t, please.” He grabs at Hardison’s wrist, and Hardison stills, kissing over Eliot’s hipbone, licking at the come pooled there. “What was that?”

“Prostate milking,” says Parker.

“You have a lot in there, baby. When was the last time you came?” Hardison smoothes his thumb over the dip in Eliot’s pelvis, moving to kiss and lick at the other one.

“I don’t, I don’t jerk off very often, it’s too much effort, it’s too hard.”

“When was the last time?” asks Hardison, looking up and making eye contact.

“A few weeks ago?” Eliot guesses.

“Oh, so I’m sure you have plenty left,” says Hardison, and with that presses up with the toy again and flicks on the vibrations.

There’s no other word for it: Eliot howls. He writhes, his one leg not enough leverage to get away, or get closer, whatever he’s trying to do. He hugs Parker tight to him, nearly sobbing into her hair.

“Oh, look at you two,” says Hardison, his voice soft, barely audible over Eliot’s panting. “So pretty, so good for me.”

Parker isn’t sure how long it goes on. All she knows is that Eliot has come soaking his stomach, spreading down to his chest, dripping over the sheets, without his cock ever once getting hard.

“Enough, enough,” he gasps, and Hardison turns off the toy immediately, slides it gently out of Eliot. Parker turns and kisses him, fucking her tongue into his mouth and tasting the bitter salt of tears, and underneath it, her taste still lingering on his tongue.

“Fuck,” Hardison bites out, rising up onto his knees. He still hasn’t removed a single item of clothing, and the armpits and collar of his t-shirt are soaked in sweat. His eyes are just the tiniest bit crazy. Eliot reaches out a hand and cups Hardison’s face, and Hardison leans into it, closing his eyes and exhaling hard through his nose. He fumbles at his pants, and just pulls his cock out enough to squeeze it hard at the base, like he’s afraid of coming.

“What do you want?” Parker asks. “I’m too sore to fuck, and I think Eliot is, too.” She can feel Eliot nod on the pillow next to her. 

“Fuck, I want to—but I can’t, I can’t,” says Hardison, kneading at the slight bit of chub Eliot has at his hips.

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Eliot says, echoing Hardison’s words from earlier. “I’m not asking about what you think you can and can’t do. I’m asking about what you want.”

“I want to fuck your thighs,” Hardison blurts, and just for a moment Parker can see his uncertainty, how lost he is. “I know, it’s awful, I don’t want to trigger you with your leg, but fuck, your thighs Eliot, they’re so fucking thick—”

“Okay,” says Eliot, simply.

“Okay?” Hardison asks, tilting his head.

“Yeah,” Eliot says, smiling like he’s surprising even himself. “Yeah, that’s fine. Parker, sit up.” Parker sits up crossed legged at the front of the bed, pulls Eliot’s head into her lap, and Eliot lifts his legs. Parker grabs his hand, and Eliot smiles. “Go ahead.”

“Really?” asks Hardison, already shuffling forward and slicking his cock, just checking one more time. Parker can see his hands shake.

“Yeah, it’s totally fine,” says Eliot, peaceably, and closes his eyes, so relaxed it looks like he might be going to sleep.

Hardison quickly slicks up the inside of Eliot’s thighs, right below his balls. The look on his face when he slides in is what Parker imagines a man arriving in heaven might look like. He tries to start slow, Parker can tell, but before long he’s practically jack rabbiting, panting hard, his face all screwed up.

“Go kiss him,” says Eliot, jostled with every one of Hardison’s thrusts. Parker nods and kneels up, kissing Hardison while Eliot lies beneath them. It only takes a few more kisses, a few more ragged thrusts before Hardison is groaning deep into her mouth and coming between Eliot’s thighs, messing him up even more. Hardison drops back hard onto his heels, and for a moment the only sound in the room is his panting.

Then there’s a scratch at the door, and a whine. Another whine.

“Fuck,” Hardison says, dropping his head back. “The dogs.” Eliot had brought Bump and Scooter over to play with Pirate, and from the sound of it, all three of them had been crying at the door for God knows how long.

“You two go take a shower,” says Parker, climbing out of bed. “I’ll take them out.” She pulls on a pair of sweatpants and one of Hardison’s t-shirts, and what she sees as she softly closes the bedroom door behind her is Eliot and Hardison, sweetly kissing on the bed. Hardison has his hands buried in Eliot’s hair, and Eliot has his good leg curled around Hardison’s hip.

Yeah, Parker reflects, as she watches Pirate and Scooter chasing each other around the yard, Bump doing her best to stumble behind. She was certainly, most definitely, extremely pleased.

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thanks to the mods at the Leverage Big/Mini Bang for making the first fic bang I've ever participated in so fun and so community oriented. All the love and yelling and exclamation marks for my incredible artist, Sid (http://steverogersisbi.tumblr.com) who took my incoherent rambling about dogs and polyamory and made these fucking MASTERPIECES that I am going to hang on my wall for everyone to see (yes including the porn one). Finally, the biggest thank you of all to you guys, for reading. Comments and kudos are always welcome, but in any case I give you a million kisses from a respectful distance anyway for reading my fic!!


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